


Pull Me Out from Inside

by CitrusVanille



Series: Nightmares [1]
Category: McFly
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-16
Updated: 2009-06-16
Packaged: 2019-03-01 12:43:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13295145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CitrusVanille/pseuds/CitrusVanille
Summary: “‘m all right,” Dougie tells his knees. “Just a bad dream.”





	Pull Me Out from Inside

Tom doesn’t bother turning on the lights when he rolls out of bed and stumbles out of his room at whore-o’clock in the morning, feeling like he could drink half an ocean if someone offered it. Without the salt. He only trips once, which he counts as a victory, and there are actually clean mugs in the kitchen, so he’s clearly done something good if he’s being rewarded for it. He wonders if, maybe, finally getting his band together counts. It certainly feels like a good thing.

He leaves his used mug in the sink, promising himself he’ll wash the dishes tomorrow – or the day after at the latest – and shuffles out of the kitchen. He’s halfway up the first flight of stairs when he hears a loud, cut-off noise that sounds disturbingly like an aborted scream. He freezes for about two heartbeats – feet on different steps, hand clutching the banister – then bolts up the remaining stairs.

He listens for a moment outside Danny’s door, heart in his mouth, but doesn’t hear anything. He knocks softly – no reply. He eases the door open just enough to see in. The room’s dark, but he can make out the Danny-shaped lump bundled up on the bed that rolls over as he watches, but doesn’t appear to have been screaming moments before.

Harry’s room is next, with the same results. Tom’s listening to the silence outside Dougie’s room, wondering if maybe the noise hadn’t come from their house at all – or maybe he’d just imagined it – when there’s a muffled sound from the other side of the door. Tom’s stomach drops. It’s not a scream, not that, but if it is what he thinks it is, that might be even worse.

There’s no answer to his gentle knock, but he’s pretty sure there’s a choked gasp. He pushes the door open, and Dougie’s sitting up in bed – if it can be called sitting. He’s got his knees pulled up to his chest, arms locked around them, shoulders hunched.

“Dougie?” Tom keeps his voice low, hesitates in the doorway, unsure what to do. He doesn’t know Dougie all that well, hasn’t known him for very long, doesn’t know what the rules are in a case like this.

“‘m all right,” Dougie tells his knees. “Just a bad dream.” His voice is soft, but Tom can hear the break in it, the way the words hitch with his breathing.

And this, this is Tom’s out, he knows it. He can walk away, go back to his room, his bed, sleep. They’ll have breakfast in the morning, and Dougie won’t say anything, won’t hold it against him, might even be glad that Tom left. It’s tempting. Really tempting. But Tom’s not sure he could live with himself if he leaves now.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Tom asks, and he takes half a step into the room.

Dougie shakes his head, but his ‘no’ sounds more like a question than an answer.

Tom takes another half step forward. “Do you – is there anything I can do?”

Dougie is backlit by the scraps of light sneaking in around the edges of the curtain from the streetlamp outside. It casts odd shadows over his face when he finally lifts his head. “Could you – would you talk to me?” he asks. He sounds like he expects Tom to say no, maybe laugh at him. Tom feels like a jerk.

“Sure. Of course,” Tom says, and shuts the door before venturing further into the room. He stops several steps away from the bed and awkwardly folds himself into a sitting position on the floor, but.

“You could sit here,” Dougie offers, and he’s looking at his knees again, but he sounds like he means it.

“Oh. Right.” Tom gets up again and shuffles over to the bed, sits on the edge. He wishes he knew what to do, how to make this okay. He wishes he could wash away the tear-tracks he can now see on Dougie’s cheeks, make them disappear and never come back. He wishes he was older, because there is no way he is old enough to handle this, to handle Dougie looking so hurt and vulnerable.

Tom reaches out, puts a hand on Dougie’s shoulder, feels he should try to reassure him somehow, but –

“Don’t touch me!” Dougie jerks away so hard he tips over, and the look that flashes across his face is pure terror. It vanishes a split second later, and “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean –” he stutters, crawling on his knees with his hands out, palms facing Tom like he’s trying to placate him. “It’s not you – I just –”

“It’s okay,” Tom says. It’s not, but it’s not Dougie’s fault. Dougie looks even younger than his fifteen years, and Tom feels like the world’s biggest arsehole. “Really. I shouldn’t have tried to –” he stops when Dougie touches his arm, ten fingertips pressed just above Tom’s elbow. They stay frozen like that for a long moment, both of them just staring at the point of contact.

Then Dougie pulls away and curls himself back around his drawn-up knees, but he tilts over just far enough that he’s half resting against Tom, shoulder to shoulder. Tom can feel the tension in Dougie’s muscles, the way each deep breath makes him tremble just the tiniest bit, like he’s still fighting tears.

“What do you want me to talk about?” Tom asks, because he’s not sure what else to say.

“Anything,” Dougie says, voice soft, then, “Tell me about you? About your family?”

So Tom talks about his parents, his sister, his childhood. “It’s just me and Carrie with Mum and Dad,” he says. “She’s the baby – a couple years younger than Jazzie – and she can be a pest, but you’ll probably like her, most people do. She got on really well with Dan when he was staying with us, but she said she didn’t know why I wanted to leave home to live with a bunch of boys.”

Dougie makes a noise that’s not quite a laugh, but Tom counts it as a win anyway.

“She sings, too,” he continues. “Played the little Eponine in a production of Les Mis in the West End a couple years ago, when she was seven. She’s a bit obsessed with the play, actually. And she’s quite good, not that I’d ever actually tell her that, she’s already a total prima donna.”

Dougie gives another not-quite-laugh.

Tom touches the ring on his finger. “She’s got one of these, too,” he says. “Our parents gave them to us. They’re engraved.” Dougie reaches over, tip of his finger against the metal.

“‘S nice,” he murmurs, and pulls his hand back to tuck around his legs again. He leans in a little more though, a little more weight against Tom’s side, and he’s not shaking anymore.

Tom hesitates a moment, tries to think of what else to say. He shifts a little so Dougie’s weight on his shoulder doesn’t make his arm go dead, ends up with his arm half around Dougie’s back, supporting him.

“Tom?” Dougie’s voice is low, almost sleepy.

“I went to my first concert when I was four,” Tom says quickly, doesn’t really know what else to say. “Bryan Adams. I don’t really remember it, but my mum loves him. She says she already knew I wanted to be a musician.”

Dougie hums a bit in response, doesn’t say anything.

“I went to drama school, though – did _Oliver!_ – and that,” Tom can feel his face heat up a bit, is glad it’s dark, and that Dougie’s not looking at him. “That was an experience.” He grins a bit at himself. Acting really isn’t his thing, not like Carrie. “It’s strange being on stage like that,” he says when Dougie just hums again. “Being in costume with a whole bunch of other people you know, but none of you are actually yourselves, you’re these other people – these characters you’re playing. It’s not like music, when you can just be _you_ – whoever you are. And it’s a very different kind of thing creatively. I _like_ writing music – by myself or with you lot, or James, or whoever. I’ve learned a lot. Though it was a little odd, at first, writing with James after what happened with Busted. But. But I’m glad it worked out the way it did.”

“Me, too.” It’s barely a whisper, and Tom can feel how much Dougie’s relaxed against him.

“Yeah,” he says, wonders if he should talk more about James, about Busted, about watching Danny try out for V, even though Dougie’s heard it all before. But Dougie’s gone mostly limp against Tom’s shoulder by now, and his breathing has evened out, so Tom falls silent. When he tries to move, though, Dougie catches his wrist.

“Keep talking?” he asks, voice sleep-rough.

Tom shifts again, feeling a little stiff. “Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, okay, just.” He shifts some more and manages to reposition them so he’s leaning against the headboard, Dougie curled up into his side. “Okay,” he says again, and starts in on living in the hotel with Danny, despite Dougie having heard all the stories from both sides.

Dougie’s eyes close, but Tom keeps talking, even when he’s sure Dougie is actually asleep. He’s oddly afraid that if he stops, Dougie will wake up again, or, worse, have another nightmare. So Tom talks about anything and everything he can think of, rambling some, but it’s not like it matters. He figures if he runs out of stories, he can always just recite lyrics, just so long as he can keep Dougie in a dreamless sleep.


End file.
